


Santa Barbara

by ConvenientAlias



Category: Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Genre: Background Tom/Daisy, Emotional Manipulation, F/F, Infidelity, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-12 08:45:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13543803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConvenientAlias/pseuds/ConvenientAlias
Summary: "It just so happened that Jordan was staying in the same hotel as Daisy and Tom were. Just so happened. Jordan smiled coolly when she said that, so Daisy smiled back and said oh wasn’t that a coincidence and once again, absolutely lovely, well it will certainly be nice to have a familiar face around. Because Tom was in the room, so that was what Jordan was supposed to be at the moment: an old friend, a familiar face. Nothing more than that."Or, the one where it's been only three months since the wedding but Jordan already doesn't like Tom and Daisy's relationship.





	Santa Barbara

 

 

> I saw them in Santa Barbara when they came back, and I thought I’d never seen a girl so mad about her husband. If he left the room for a minute she’d look around uneasily, and say: “Where’s Tom gone?” and wear the most abstracted expression until she saw him coming in the door. She used to sit on the sand with his head in her lap by the hour, rubbing her fingers over his eyes and looking at him with unfathomable delight. It was touching to see them together — it made you laugh in a hushed, fascinated way.
> 
> -Jordan Baker, _The Great Gatsby_

 

Daisy hadn’t seen Jordan for three months before they met in Santa Barbara.

That was what they said to each other when they ran into each other. “Darling! Well, how lovely—I haven’t seen you in three months.” And other variations on the theme. The three months had been Daisy’s honeymoon, and they had been spent in the South Seas, a whirlwind of exotic locales, luxury, furious sex and good food. Jordan didn’t ask about them and Daisy didn’t offer any information. Seeing Jordan felt like a jolt of reality, as if for the past three months she had been walking around only half awake. Surely without Jordan around nothing truly important could have happened.

It just so happened that Jordan was staying in the same hotel as she and Tom were. Just so happened. Jordan smiled coolly when she said that, so Daisy smiled back and said oh wasn’t that a coincidence and once again, absolutely lovely, well it will certainly be nice to have a familiar face around. Because Tom was in the room, so that was what Jordan was supposed to be at the moment: an old friend, a familiar face. Nothing more than that.

And she couldn’t be any more than that anyhow, Daisy reminded herself. Not now. Daisy had a husband and she was going to be a good wife and they were going to be an important couple to society when they got back to New York. Proper women didn’t cheat on their husbands, not even when their husbands were always looking at other options. They were better than that.

In fact, she was better than Jordan Baker. Always had been, ever since they went to school together. The fact that they had occasionally gone to bed together in the past too meant nothing now. Daisy had moved on from all that.

But yes, darling, how lovely that we’ll be seeing each other around. Daisy was willing to condescend, after all, for politeness’ sake.

* * *

 

She was sure that Jordan would be chasing her down all the time at the hotel (for it was certainly _not_ a coincidence) but instead she stayed aloof. Daisy spotted her talking up various men and women in the lounge in the evenings, stealing cigarettes from them and whispering in their ears. She thought Jordan was bound to approach her like that. But she didn’t. Maybe because Daisy didn’t smoke.

Instead Daisy was forced to approach her, and in broad daylight.

“Jordan, darling! Fancy running into you.” She sat down in the lounge on the couch next to Jordan. On the opposite side, though she faced towards Jordan. There. Her words were polite and so was her posture. This was how you talked to an old acquaintance, wasn’t it?

(Not such an old acquaintance, though. Didn’t see her for three months or think of her for three months. But three months were not such a very long time. Four months ago Jordan had kissed her and said it was a goodbye kiss since she was getting married now, and she had smiled very sweetly and probably meant it. Four months ago and four months was barely anything at all.)

“Fancy running into you,” Jordan repeated, but in her mouth it came out like mockery. She leaned back—further away from Daisy, to her distress. “What’s the princess been doing?”

“Oh…nothing much.” Honeymoon routine had become commonplace: the beach, a nice dinner, dutiful and theoretically impassioned sex.

“I thought you’d come visit me,” Jordan said.

Daisy raised her eyebrows. She giggled, a little nervous. “Oh. I’m sorry.”

“You said you’d come visit me,” Jordan said. “Don’t you remember?”

She could barely remember their meeting last week at all—odd, it had felt striking at the time. “I’m sorry, I’ve been dreadfully busy.”

“Doing nothing,” Jordan drawled, “with Mr. Buchanan.”

“Tom’s demanding.”

“He is that sort of man,” Jordan agreed. She leaned forward now, businesslike. “My room number is 307.”

“Oh. I’ll try to remember. My room number is 412.”

Jordan smiled. She had such a contemptuous smile. “That’s funny.”

“Oh? Is it?”

“I always see your husband on my floor. I thought we had to be on the same floor.” Jordan’s eyes were wide, and her tone confidential. No, Daisy was not going to listen to gossip about Tom, she absolutely was not. “Well, maybe it’s because he always has questions for the maids. I see him talking to the maids a lot. Though you’d think he could do that on your own floor, wouldn’t you?”

Daisy smiled.

“Wouldn’t you?” Jordan moved down the couch, closer to Daisy. “But I guess men act a little funny sometimes.”

“I’ve been having a lovely honeymoon with Tom,” Daisy said.

“I’m sure.”

Again, Jordan didn’t ask for the specifics. Again, Daisy didn’t offer.

That evening, she stayed in her room with Tom. They ordered dinner in, and he made theoretically impassioned love to her, and it was the same as many many other evenings. Now that she had seen Jordan and was no longer in the same three-month haze, she found her attention drifting when he talked to her.

“Daisy? Daisy.”

“Yes dear.”

“What do you think? Would you like that?”

“If you would, dear.”

“All right then…”

And in the morning it turned out she had accidentally agreed to asking Jordan to join them on their daily trip to the beach.

* * *

 

It was the first of several such trips.

Tom had decided for some reason to positively approve of Jordan. Maybe it was because she listened to him. They ate lunch together and he expounded at length on his thoughts on the political situation of the nation or of the world, and Jordan listened to him. She usually had good responses, neither agreeing nor disagreeing, but she waited to speak until he paused and looked to her. So one way or another she encouraged him.

Daisy decided she didn’t like Tom talking politics. She hadn’t minded it before now. He’d do it over breakfast while reading the newspaper, and his opinions were always so bold that it was fun to talk to him, egging him on or playing devil’s advocate or simply agreeing to see what he’d say next. Jordan being there somehow sapped the fun out of it. He sounded like an idiot, she thought to herself, an absolute idiot and he was making her look like an idiot for marrying him and putting up with him and listening to him talk, and how did he not know that when Jordan looked at you that way it was never really approving? How did he not know that Jordan was secretly laughing at him?

“Come into the water,” he called out to her, laughing. She hadn’t even come in her swimsuit today and he wanted her to wade in wearing her nice white dress. She waved at him genially and was happy to see him turn around and wade in further without pressing the point.

Jordan, sitting next to her, said, “You two are adorable.”

And for the first time since her arrival in Santa Barbara, Daisy heard real emotion in her voice. Complete acid.

“A woman completely gone on her husband. The way you let him lay his head on your lap—like a frame from a pastoral!”

“Jordan…”

Jordan’s hands were buried in the sand. She didn’t look at Daisy. “You used to say you didn’t need those sorts of things.”

“Tom is my husband. It’s respectable.”

“Do you relish it? Having grown up to be such a big girl? So very domestic and respectable?” Jordan looked up and met Daisy’s eyes. Slowly, deliberately, she put a hand on Daisy’s bare leg.

(Four months since Jordan last put her hand there. Four months. One minute. It belonged there, so what was the difference?)

Daisy placed her own hand on top of Jordan’s, unsure whether she wanted to pin it where it was to keep it there or to prevent it from creeping closer to her hip. Or if she just wanted to touch Jordan’s hand. “It’s my life now.”

“Your life. Your whole life?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, do you think Tom thinks being married to you is his whole life?”

Daisy removed Jordan’s hand, clinically placing it on the picnic blanket between them. “Tom’s a man. It’s different for men. They can be very restless.”

“But Daisy Fay is never restless. Not anymore. Now she has a husband, and soon she’ll have children, and she can spend all her time taking care of a real live household.”

“Buchanan,” Daisy said, “Daisy Buchanan.”

“How could I forget? Please do forgive me.”

“Jordan. Please.”

Jordan shook her head, then smiled, not the sarcastic smile from before but the same polite mask she wore in front of Tom. “As I said, forgive me. I suppose I forgot myself. I’m very used to Daisy Fay, not Daisy Buchanan. But I am sure you and Tom are as happy as one could hope for with a man. It is only that I am a little protective…”

Sure, that was why. Daisy said, “You don’t need to worry about me, Jordan.”

“Of course not. Daisy can take care of herself.”

Daisy giggled. “Well.”

“It’s good that you and Tom love each other. Don’t mind me. I’m just a pessimist.”

* * *

 

  
307\. Three-oh-seven. Jordan had said the number only once and it was a week ago now but Daisy had remembered. Why had Jordan even needed to tell her the number?Probably because she foresaw that one day Daisy would be feeling exactly like this.

She banged on the door. Didn’t knock, banged. Jordan answered within moments.

“Daisy. Come in.”

It was a little past three in the afternoon, a good time for visiting, a good time for tea. Jordan was pouring a couple glasses of white wine when Daisy spoke. “Tom’s missing.”

“Really?” Jordan’s voice actually sounded surprised. Daisy laughed.

“No, don’t worry, he does this quite often. Goes missing in the morning and then it’s all fine as long as he’s back for dinner. A late dinner.” She sat down. Jordan’s room had only a small parlor but there was a nice wicker-woven chair, and while it wasn’t soft she didn’t feel soft right now anyhow. She crossed her legs. “Which maid do you always see him talking with?”

“Well, I don’t know if…”

“The red head?”

Jordan smiled and shrugged. “They all wear the same uniform and look alike to me.”

“He likes red heads. If he likes red hair so much, why’d he go marry a blonde?” Daisy tugged at her hair. Annoyed, she stood up. “So I got tired of waiting for him to come back.”

Jordan held out a glass of wine to Daisy. Daisy accepted it and drank it in one long, thirsty gulp. She set the glass down on a little table.

“Do you need someone to talk to?” Jordan asked.

Daisy smiled brightly. “How about we talk in the bedroom?”

* * *

 

She only stayed a few hours. Then she went back to her own room. When Tom came back she didn’t feel guilty, only a little bit smug—he apologized for having been out so long and told her he hoped she hadn’t been too bored. It was fine, she told him, she’d been playing Solitaire and really she was very capable of amusing herself, and he didn’t need to base all his plans around her. She didn’t ask him what he’d been doing. His excuses were vague.

And that night they had dinner and made theoretically impassioned love again and when he fell asleep immediately afterwards she felt a certain fondness. It was not like the feverish first infatuation she had felt for him or the possessive worry that often came upon her now, more like the way you might feel about a toy you had as a child or a pet dog if you weren’t so much a dog person but didn’t dislike them either. He was here, he was hers. He was warm and solid and it wasn’t so bad to share a bed with him, really. Maybe it didn’t matter if she wasn’t the only person he’d ever love or want, maybe it didn’t matter what she did. Maybe things between them would be fine.

Later that week she wanted to talk to Jordan. Tell her…well, she wasn’t quite sure. Tell her that it wouldn’t happen again? That Tom was not so bad, really, and she hadn’t been quite fair? Tell her that she loved Tom even if it wasn’t the same way she loved Jordan, even if he wasn’t as dependable as Jordan, even if he didn’t…well.

Tell her thank you?

It was impossible, anyhow.

Jordan seemed to be avoiding Daisy. She saw her, certainly, but only around other people, often when she was with Tom or Jordan was in the middle of talking to someone else but could take just a couple moments to include Daisy before floating back into a crowd. And when they talked Jordan didn’t seem distant, really—she would stroke Daisy’s arm or lay a platonic kiss on her cheek or grin at her knowingly—but she didn’t talk of anything of importance either. She didn’t mention Tom again. Daisy didn’t have a chance to defend him.

Then, five days later on the beach:

“You’re leaving?” Tom said.

“Yes. There’s a golf tournament. Santa Barbara’s lovely, but needs must.” Jordan shrugged carelessly. “Of course I’ll miss you two dreadfully.”

“Well, now…that’s too bad.” Tom frowned. Jordan still listened to him attentively when he talked about politics. With her gone, there would be one less person to stroke his ego.

“Jordan has to do what she has to do,” Daisy said. “She’s an athlete. She can’t miss an event just for us.” She put a hand on Jordan’s arm. “Of course, I’ll…”

“I’m sure I’ll see you again,” Jordan said. “You and your lovely husband.” For a moment Daisy thought Jordan was going to kiss her again, on the cheek or maybe even on the lips in broad daylight, but instead she leaned away, brushing Daisy off. “But I think we may depend on serendipity to bring us together again.”

After that day at the beach, she did not see Jordan again. Jordan didn’t bother to come and say goodbye, causing Tom to call her flighty. Daisy told him Jordan had always come and go where she pleased, done exactly what she wanted when she wanted. That was her way.

She told herself she wouldn’t miss Jordan. Probably it was for the best. With Jordan around Daisy was always on the edge of a scandal, a crisis. Jordan made her do dumb things that weren’t sensible even if they were fun. She’d been married to Tom for only three and a half months—this was the time to focus on Tom, not on a fling from the past.

Serendipity. That was a funny way to put it. Surely it hadn’t been coincidence that had brought Jordan to Santa Barbara. It might have been, since that was a long way to drive just to see an old friend or enjoy a brief fling. But the fact that Jordan called it a coincidence made it feel a lot less coincidental.

Serendipity and chance. Daisy wouldn’t count on them. But Jordan had said they would see each other again, and if she’d said that, they certainly would.

 

Not that Daisy would be waiting for it.

**Author's Note:**

> You can say Daisy's crowd is kind of nomadic but really Jordan? You just happened to be in Santa Barbara exactly when Daisy arrived there after her honeymoon? Sure.  
> I wrote this fic for a prompt of "Jordan manipulating Daisy (and Daisy kind of going along with it)." It was an interesting prompt for me because usually if anything I picture the manipulation going the other direction! But writing Jordan as a bit more aggressive and underhanded is fun, especially since it allows me to portray Daisy a little more positively. Though tbh I'm not sure anyone in The Great Gatsby is really all that nice.  
> Comments and kudos are always appreciated. OR come talk to me on tumblr at convenientalias, where I'm still taking femslash prompts for Femslash February.


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